Lost? This Luxury Watch Will Hail a Search and Rescue Team.

Breitling’s Emergency timepieces, now life-saving

By Kirk Miller

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14 October 2016

You can worry about losing your very expensive watch.

That expensive watch, however, will never lose you.

At least that’s the idea behind Breitling’s Emergency watch line, the world’s first wristwatch with a built-in dual frequency personal locator beacon, now reintroduced in three new colorways called Night Mission.

When activated, that PLB triggers alerts and guides search and rescue operations. Which is cool, but the tech has actually been around for awhile — the Swiss watchmaker debuted a version of Emergency back in 1995 and kept it in production until 2010. It worked, too: the company claims 20 people were rescued thanks to the watch’s beacon technology.

But according to Forbes, the new Emergency was delayed until last year due to needed upgrades to its signal, FCC approval and the need to get its tech into something that wouldn’t be too bulky on the wrist.

The three new special editions, just released, feature a titanium case rendered black through a “high-resistance carbon-based treatment,” with orange or yellow accents, or a blue mother of-pearl dial. In our opinion, the colors accentuate the tech nicely — what looked a bit bulky before now has a high-tech, rugged appeal.